A Bracelet a Week: Egyptian Stripes

This week’s bracelet design was a little lesson in choosing beading instinct over patience. After dressing up a pair of new Czech glass hieroglyph pendants, I wanted to try capturing one in a peyote stitch bezel, and use it in a cuff bracelet. This turned out to be easier said than done.

There just aren’t enough curves on these lozenge shaped beads to hold a traditional tubular peyote bezel. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time experimenting with increases and different bead patterns until I found a bezel shape that would work. It's not much fun, and I don’t like using up thread if there’s an easier solution.

Instead, I started with the standard 3 rows of 11/o beads, and added a row of 15/o’s on each side. Then I took advantage of the bead holes, and stitched it to the bezel base to hold in in place. I added a few more rows of beadwork to one side of the bead, to prevent slipping and make sure that it didn’t pop out of the bezel.

I love the way it turned out. The face of the hieroglyph bead is totally free of the beadwork, and sits in it’s jacket snugly. After adding some peyote stitch off the sides, I ended up with a really nice cuff that has a shape reminiscent of the scarab god Khepri.

Now to come up with a palette for the orange hieroglyphs…

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